Note 255 — Chapter III

A power to interfere in the internal concerns of a State would only have been exercised by a broad construction of the third of the Articles of Confederation, which was in these words: "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare; binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever." When this is compared with the clear and explicit provision in the Constitution, by which it is declared that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government," there can be no wonder that a doubt was felt in the Congress of 1786-87 as to their powers upon this subject. It is true that the Massachusetts delegation, when they laid before Congress the measures which had been taken by the State government to suppress the insurrection, expressed the confidence of the legislature that the firmest support and most effectual aid would have been afforded by the United States, had it been necessary, and asserted that such support and aid were expressly and solemnly stipulated by the Articles of Confederation. (Journals, XII. 20. March 9, 1787.) But this was clearly not the case; and it was not generally supposed in Congress that the power existed by implication. All that was done by Congress towards raising troops, at the time of the insurrection, was done for the ostensible purpose of protecting the frontiers against an Indian invasion, as we shall see hereafter.